OP, I agree with you that this is a really hard decision. It’s a lot of money!
We felt that our D could have gotten an excellent education at our state flagship and that they would have promoted her and given her opportunities. But I think she would have been part of a smaller cohort (honors college), and that she would have been given special treatment.
For us, we liked the idea of her being treated like ALL of her classmates. And we liked the idea of her being challenged no matter what classes she took. And we liked how all of her classmates were super motivated and involved, and how different everyone was from each other. We thought she would have more personal growth at the more expensive school.
Now that we are at the end of Senior year, I can say that we have had some years where we thought spending all that money was worth it, and other years when we thought we made a mistake. The years we questioned ourselves were the year and a half of Covid lockdowns, when all the things that made her current school special were suspended. While hopefully something like that will never occur for your student, I think there are some factors that can be sussed out, such as:
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are there ECs/internships/research opportunities that are available at the more expensive school that would not be available at the other school? And if not available at the school, would your child be able to obtain these opportunities in the surrounding community? Would your child actually take advantage of these opportunities? One thing that was surprising to us is that some of the more interesting ECs had participation caps on them, and not everyone could get in. That happened for my D, but she was able to find a similar activity in the community and we think that the community activity was actually more beneficial for her.
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what is your child interested in studying, and how will that look in the two different colleges? My D is a pre-med, and we feel that the premed classes would be similar in the two different schools because of the MCAT driving the content. However, our D is a humanities major and we think some of those classes could look very different in the two schools. I know you said your child is interested in becoming a vet, but as long as they take certain classes, they can probably major in anything.
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how do the classes look at each of the two schools, and is it hard to get into the classes that your child would want? For my D, she ended up having all on-line classes all of Junior year and of course 2nd semester Sophmore year. For us, while we understood it had to be on-line for Covid, this would be a deal-breaker during ordinary times. Some kids really like this, though, so it’s important to see what each school has, and where they are going in the future, and whether this works for your child. Another difference is whether the schools have inverted classes or the more traditional classes (and for what courses), and whether your child learns better in one method than another. Likewise, class size can matter, and how often certain classes are offered can matter because this can throw you off track for graduating on time if you miss some necessary timing. Finally, one of the things that was so excellent at my D’s school is all of the academic support available. I think most schools have TA sessions, but at her school there were multiple sections for each class, and it is easy to switch between the TA sessions.
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is there a difference in who you think your child’s classmates will be? Will that make a difference to your child one way or another? Will your child seek out opportunities to be with classmates different from them (I’m not only talking about race/culture, but also about socio-economic class, rural vs suburban vs city, artsy vs sciency etc), or is their personality such that they would naturally tend to hang out with people who are like them?
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does the school tend to encourage collaboration or competition, and are the 2 schools different? Is one method better for your child than another?
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does your child have any special needs that one school would accommodate better than the other? Whether academic, or physical or allergies/food.
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your child’s personality…are they easygoing and would thrive anywhere, or is their environment particularly important to them and one school’s environment much better for them than the other? Do you think your child will have more growth at one school rather than another?
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politics…is there a difference between the 2 schools and would one fit your child better than the other? Would that even make a difference to them?
Just some food for thought. Good luck in trying to figure out what works best for your particular child and your family.